


A Ribbon of Blue

by JessicaPendragon



Series: Canon Keela Lavellan [37]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 03:13:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9859628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: There is still a war being fought, full of empty reports and empty cheeks touched in the mirror, of words she can’t pronounce to another yet and fears born from lost dreams instead of nightmares, but they both can recognize what today is - an olive branch offered amongst all those with thorns.Tumblr Link





	

“To the Commander’s then?” Rylen asks as they exit the Undercroft. That wee Dagna is sure to be a Paragon someday but she gives him a fright, looking at him like he’s an insect she’d like to pin to a wall and dissect. With a relieved sigh he shakes out his arms and mentally checks off another thing done for the Inquisitor. He gets Keela’s schedule for the next day every night, approves or makes changes where he sees fit for the morning so her routine doesn’t become a liability. If he can predict her next move so can the assassins still slashing at her heels.

Today she is being unpredictable, however. It is nothing that completely undermines her safety but little rebellions and yet for her they seem grand gestures. He expects her to come down from her tower in the same dark attire she has adapted for the last few months and instead she greets him in a dress of pale blue and a matching ribbon weaving through her hair. There are other things throughout the day, hand brushing against his in plain sight, laughter that doesn’t sound as hollow as before, but the greatest surprise comes as they walk down the main hall and Keela doesn’t continue through the main doors. Instead she pauses just a moment, shoulders pushing back, and turns her feet towards the rotunda.

It is the quickest way to the Commander’s tower but has been thoroughly avoided every time they venture across the keep, so much so that he often forgoes having it checked these days. Even now as he follows her, a little slacked jawed and very confused, he doesn’t scour the shadows for knives or the rafters for arrows, only watches her as she spares a few glances at the colorful murals around them before soldiering on through the outer door. She lets out a breath much like he did and he can see the edge of a pleased smirk on her lips as they walk across the bridge.

The Commander doesn’t seem to be in his office when they arrive. “We will wait a few minutes,” Keela announces as she rests on the edge of Cullen’s large desk to play with a large paperweight. Rylen leans back and hooks a foot onto the ladder in the middle of the room and watches her, an act that doesn’t go unnoticed for too long. “Something on your mind?”

He wants to ask what’s happened between one day and the next, this unknown change to her routine that he can’t account for. He wants to ask what she’s feeling, if these actions are vindictive or victorious. He wants to ask if she really means it, the way she’s looking at him now, that familiar tease of lust and need softened by affection and something vulnerable, something testing like new words on a tangled tongue. He wants to ask _why him_ , out of all the others.  

“It’s a pretty dress, lass. I’m thinking it’ll be a lot easier to get off than that blighted armor,” he says instead, for there is still a war being fought, full of empty reports and empty cheeks touched in the mirror, of words she can’t pronounce to another yet and fears born from lost dreams instead of nightmares, but they both can recognize what today is - an olive branch offered amongst all those with thorns.

Keela pushes away from the desk and approaches, wrapping hands around the sides of his waist, body close but not touching just yet. It’s with a different kind of boldness that she weathers his gaze and his hands gentle through her hair and around her jaw, but she crumbles a bit when he brushes a thumb across her cheek, and he thinks, as he pulls her close and kisses her, that she has fought long enough for today.

They give into what they know best, what is easy, the chase of passion and the relief found in the touch of lips and the taste of skin. He moves and pins her to the ladder, the current between them changing with the shift as they’re taken under desperate desire that drowns out all warnings and common sense and, for her, ghosts that linger. Still he plans on staying in some control before her quick fingers undo the laces to his pants to slip inside.

“Are you mad, lass? Rutherford could be back in a-” She stalls his words as she squeezes his shaft, as teeth skim down his jaw, and he surrenders to it all. Calloused thumbs hook into her smalls and yank them down legs before wiggling pants loose around his thighs. There is no pleading for him to hurry but he feels it as her nails dig into his neck and with each short breath she takes, the way he can barely see the ring of electric green in her eyes for the black that has swallowed it whole.

Keela grabs onto the rungs above her when he hauls her up around his waist. He takes it slow at first, moaning into her shoulder to find her a fire burning without flame, warm and wet and sending scorching thrills all the way up his spine. Her thick legs squeeze around him urging him deeper and he repays her by thrusting hard, making her gasp and arch against him. He pushes her back into the ladder with another snap of his hips and another, unrelenting now with her heat in his veins. He leans back, a hand digging into her ass while the other moving between her legs. It’s a difficult position to manage when she lets go of the ladder with one hand to bunch it into his shirt, but he likes to watch her come undone, to see that brief moment when there are no walls or armor and only flesh exposed and open - something she once liked to hide away into his shoulder or the down of a pillow.

“You’re a wicked thing, you know that? I can’t get enough of the way you feel and those sounds you make. You’re a right sin, love.” he says, dipping his voice deep and thick with his accent, for he knows what she likes too. Keela groans louder in appreciation, shivers as his thumb thrums pleasure from her body, and he can see the edge fast approaching in her eyes. “Come on, then. Let me have it.”

It takes only a few more electric breaths to see her rushing over. The nails of her hand find his skin and dig in, but he doesn’t care as she gives him everything in the way her mouth opens in a choked cry, the clench of her around him shaking, the way her eyes and mark burn for just a brief moment. He holds her secure through the fall, lips pressing to her neck, until she is strong enough to support herself again. Gently he brings her back to standing and pulls himself from her only to have her whine and clutch to him. 

“Aren’t you…”

Those concerns he sweeps away with a kiss even as he still aches for her touch, but they’ve taken a big enough risk as it is. “If memory serves me right, you have a stretch of free time in a few hours. Long enough for a proper fucking, if you’re of a mind for it.”

Her breath hitches against his lips, another second he has to be pleased at catching her off guard, before that spark he craves too turns her into the woman who has the world at heel. “I am.”

Rylen rights himself before dipping down and retrieving her undergarments but doesn’t hand them back right away. “Whatdya think about shoving them in between Rutherford’s books? I’d wager he’d be red faced for weeks.” 

Keela laughs and snatches back her garment, and he melts a little at the way she looks now, bright and blushed and happy. It doesn’t take long for her to slip back into her things and fix her dress until the flush of her lips and cheeks are the only remnants of their coupling. He notices, however, that the ribbon in her hair has come loose and rests mostly undone on her shoulder. He reaches for it and pulls it all the way out, rubs the soft silk between fingers.

“Lost your little bauble.” 

She considers it a moment before plucking it from his grasp and tucking it into a pocket of his trousers. “Would you keep it safe for me?” she asks, soft and quiet, and he is the one to be thrown now. It’s such a small thing, although the gesture is something more profound, and out of everything he thinks he’ll treasure this moment the most.

“Aye.” He covers the hand still at his chest. “I can do that.”

“Good.”

They only have a few moments more before Cullen’s boisterous voice draws near and the Commander himself finally walks through the doors to find the Inquisitor waiting for him with an expectant look upon her face, as if he is the one imposing when it is she in his office. If Rutherford notes anything towards their previous activities he doesn’t say, and Rylen thinks he wouldn’t be able to hide it very well if he did. They conduct business as usual, troop and supply reports, mentions of Venatori and Red Sons still plaguing Thedas, and Keela is nothing but professional throughout.

There are other tasks to tend to after the long minutes spent with the commander, even longer minutes until that blessed time when they can be alone will be upon them. Rylen will admirably do his duty until then, stand in the shadows and watch, carry papers or packages, hold conversations with nobles or hold them off from the Inquisitor, and if he finds himself reaching for his pocket every once in a while with absent thoughts of a blue ribbon taking hold, well, Maker take all those that would find fault in that.


End file.
